Author
Topic: [FF9-PSX/Steam] Fixed Stats Mod (Read 6517 times)

PPFs for NTSC PS version and .hws files for Steam and for making PAL versions' PPFs: https://goo.gl/Dx38ea

Warning to Steam users: to use the mod for Steam, you need to import the .hws file using Hades Workshop and untick the "including texts" options when you do it.

In FF9, stat growth works by accumulating fractions of stat gains from each level gained with stat-boosting equipment on. The best stat-boosting equipment comes later in the game, so over the years interesting challenges and questions have developed about what combinations of gear "maximize" stats in what way for each character. Though the informed player will be over-powered in gameplay regardless of his stats or even his level, over time I've seen some folks wish they could just battle and gain levels normally during the game without the tinge that they do so giving up stat potential. This mod cuts out the variation in stat growth by confining and normalizing stat bonuses to each class of weapons (which slot no character can empty).

Suffice to say characters will grow into the kind of max stats any perfectionist would want. Wall of specifics under the spoilers.

All weapons either have fighter bonuses or mage bonuses. The unusually large stat bonuses on weapons will not overpower the party too much until endgame because I subtracted their bonuses from each character's base stats. Characters will start the game with their base stats, and while they won't get temporary +whole numbers from gear, their stats will grow more uniformly and somewhat faster. In this way, you can't tell the character from the character+weapon, so I effectively only changed the stat growth rate. Note: for complicated enough reasons, I recommend not allowing temporary members Blank and Marcus to level, or else following the steps at bottom to set Amarant and Eiko (respectively) right later; elsewise, it'll throw your stats off.

This approach also keeps the characters' relative stat strengths in tact. The only differences bigger than +/-2 compared to mixed-gear-bonus ordered totals are the following. Firstly, Vivi, Freya, Quina and Amarant didn't have stat weapons, but since they now grow uniformly based on their personal base stats, their key stats are much higher. Again, they fall into the same ranking they did naturally, independent of whatever gear is available to them Secondly, I didn't mimic the +Mag Steiner and Freya had, so their Mag is more comparable to Zidane's and Amarant's than to Quina's now. This all balances the characters' personalized natural stats with the maxes that the game already made possible.

To answer the difficulties with Spirit, the most desirable and main max-able stat, I gave everyone the same Spirit growth. I settled on the bonus value that gets almost everybody to 50 by lv99. They don't have too high Spr for most of the game because, again, I subtracted the weapon's bonus from their base stats. Characters who boast naturally higher Spirit get to max earlier; the less spirited don't have that advantage, but get there by lv97 at latest (Amarant). Only Quina doesn't get to 50, but the growth that would be needed for that would make others max Spr unreasonably early (like lv64). Singling Quina out for a bigger bonus would negate others' having higher Spr in their particular strengths and weaknesses.

Quina gets to 46, and whoever prefers round numbers to characterization just needs to level up some with some of the Hawaiian set. I am putting +4 Spr on each of the four Hawaiian items. The exact number of additional SprBonus Quina needs to get to 50 is 114, so all four pieces for 8 levels (114/(4+4+4+4)=7.125 levels needed) is the shortest route. Even going through the whole game not caring about stats or levels, it shouldn't be hard to get the Hawaiian gear and remember to put it on at least before passing Quina's lv91. In case you need other gear on to level Quina for some reason, other combinations of +4 accumulating over levels and summing at least 114 will also work. Using the otherwise useless Hawaiian gear is a good way to enable all 50s for Spr without worrying folks about their gear (the point of this mod) or tampering with the characters' natural strengths, weaknesses, and growth.

On another note, I chose Magic-ordered Quina because taking the approach described above to its numbers fits in 100% perfectly with the party's natural Str and Mag rankings.

If you do not want to play a lv1 game, or if you leveled Blank or Marcus, then Freya, Quina, Eiko, and Amarant will join at levels higher than 1. The characters who actually had to "level" will have been accumulating stat bonuses from their weapons, while these characters will start behind (or ahead in Marcus/Eiko's case) in that accumulation. But with a save editor you can just set this stat bonus to whatever you want, and then, when the character levels up again, the game will act like they got that bonus naturally. You could put in the correct max bonus at lv98, if you wanted to, and it'd jump your stats from base to max in one go. Max Magic Stones will still benefit from a lv1 game.

In this mod, since all weapons are the same for each fighter/mage, every character gains each stat bonus/growth at the same rate per level. When levels are the same, too, every fighter/mage should have the exact same stat bonuses. Their different starting points, their base stats, account for the difference between characters. GameFAQs user MadJak91 points out how you can easily use these facts to set their stats "right" using the save editor Memoria to set equal their stat bonuses.

1. When Freya or Amarant joins, save when the new member is the same level as Zidane. 2. Open this save in Memoria and on Zidane's "Misc." tab, note down the numbers for the Str, Mag, and Spr pools. Spd won't have anything in it.3. Put these numbers into the appropriate pools on the new member's "Misc." tab.4. Level up to recalculate. Every warrior should have he same bonus values at the same level. If the level and the bonus values are the same as a Vivi's, the character's stats are correct.

1. When Quina or Eiko joins, save when the new member is the same level as Vivi.2. Open this save in Memoria and on Vivi's "Misc." tab, note down the numbers for the Str, Mag, and Spr pools. Spd won't have anything in it.3. Put these numbers into the appropriate pools on the new member's "Misc." tab.4. Level up to recalculate. Every mage should have he same bonus values at the same level. If the level and the bonus values are the same as a Vivi's, the character's stats are correct.

This looks like the perfect excuse to give a 2nd run to the game, I finished it some days ago and I'm still greedy for more <3 ..Would it work on the PAL-E Version?If so, how could I install these.. "ppf" files into the 4 CDs?

I'm sorry if I shouldn't asked here, but since I'm new and the forum seems to be flooded with only FFVII and FFVIII content for the PC Versions, I feel the need xD ..

Back in August 2016, BaconCatBug recreated your FF9.2.2 - Balance fixes mod [http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=15217.50] for Steam. Is there anyway that he could give your Fixed Stats Mod [http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=16703.0] the same treatment?

I'm game to cooperate with his or to whomever with Steam FF9's doing so. In the case of this mod, I don't think there's any text to watch out for, so making the Steam version is a very easy, if slightly monotonous, job of getting HW, changing a couple character stats, and changing all gear to have the appropriate one of a few stat sets.

I took a look myself in HW and looked at the spreadsheet you provided on the FF9.2.2 page. Changing the base character stats looked simple enough, but I have no idea how to adjust the gear appropriately.

My bad. Apparently I assumed I would automatically be notified of new posts here because I created the topic. Receiving no emails--not having hit Notify until today--I just assumed no one was interested in this mod.

This looks like the perfect excuse to give a 2nd run to the game, I finished it some days ago and I'm still greedy for more <3 ..Would it work on the PAL-E Version?If so, how could I install these.. "ppf" files into the 4 CDs?

I'm sorry if I shouldn't asked here, but since I'm new and the forum seems to be flooded with only FFVII and FFVIII content for the PC Versions, I feel the need xD ..

I really regret that I did not reply in any reasonable timeframe to be helpful to your interest in FF9 and the mod. I can recall that my recollection of how these things work used to be better... EDIT: see posts below, and also I don't think this mod changes text at all. PPF-O-Matic is a piece of free software that applies the PPFs.

Edit:I'm game to cooperate with his or to whomever with Steam FF9's doing so. In the case of this mod, I don't think there's any text to watch out for, so making the Steam version is a very easy, if slightly monotonous, job of getting HW, changing a couple character stats, and changing all gear to have the appropriate one of a few stat sets.

I took a look myself in HW and looked at the spreadsheet you provided on the FF9.2.2 page. Changing the base character stats looked simple enough, but I have no idea how to adjust the gear appropriately.

Thanks, F-Lambda, for private messaging your original question to me and posting my reply here for other people who might be interested.

To change an item's stats,

Go to the Inventory tabSelect an itemSelect a different stat set or Edit Stat Set for an existing one

In the case of my mod,

I recommend editing the stat sets at the top of the list to make this quicker.

Keep/Edit a stat set with +0s for all statsClick every non-weapon on the list and set that, except for the Hawaiian stuff

Edit a stat set for mages with +1 Str, +10 Mag, +6 SprSet this for all weapons for Garnet, Vivi, Eiko, and Quina

Leave Save the Queen alone

Edit a stat set for warriors with +6 Str, +2 Mag, +6 SprSet this for all weapons not mentioned above

Edit a +4 Spr stat set for the Aloha gear, including Sandals, for people who prefer 50 Spr on Quina to the stat pros/cons of the given charactersSet this for Sandals and Aloha gear

Both save the mod and export it as PPF from the File menu. Since gear is the same on all 4 discs, you can save the mod having edited D1 (say), open it for each other disc, and save a new disc 2 mod and PPF. You need a PPF and, it's handy, a mod file for each disc.

Based on a conversation with GameFAQs' MadJak91, I added tables to show stats per level for each character to the rightmost columns of the mod's spreadsheet. This way, if you don't want to play a lv1 game but want to edit your characters who join higher to make up for the fact that the auto-leveling process uses no gear bonuses, you can know where "mod-legitimately" to set them.

Alternate Fantasy describes changing some weapons, so they both do their own equipment changes. So I think they are not compatible as-is. If you were to find that the number of equipment changes in Alternate Fantasy was not huge and crucial, one could theoretically make a combined patch with its abilities and so forth, but the fixed stats gear here.

You might have to do something about Save the Queen's stats in such a version, since Beatrix is playable in AF.

Tirlititi kindly informs me that there was some kind of version mismatch which led the uploaded files not to work for Steam. He has even provided a file that does work now. That's uploaded to the same folder. Thanks!